The acrimonious and at times violent protests in Taipei over President Chen Shui-bian's controversial re-election does not bode well for a smooth ride for his next term in office, assuming he wins a scheduled recount. Fallujah it may not have been, but Florida 2000 it may well come to be.

Despite being re-elected on the most razor-thin of majorities, just 0.2 percent on an electoral turnout of 80 percent, Chen is probably likely to hold on to his office. For a start, Chen is unlikely to have agreed to a recount so swiftly if he did not feel it would confirm his victory. Even the opposition pan-blue alliance appears tacitly to accept this outcome by declaring it will hold another protest rally on May 19, the day before the presidential inauguration. 0 million on nanotechnology in 2002, and

When George W Bush clinched the US presidency back in 2000 under similarly acrimonious circumstances, some pundits were quick to point to his legacy of bipartisan governance in Texas and that he would inevitably move to rule from the center in view of his questionable electoral mandate. Such predictions proved to be somewhat premature as the Bush administration struck off on its own distinctive policy path and the political debate in the United States got more polarized and nastier.

A second term for Chen Shui-bian, on the other hand, has furnished no such illusions. His appointment of Chen Tan-sun, a pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) parliamentarian and former head of an independence lobby group, as foreign minister to replace the outgoing Eugene Chien shows Chen is sticking firmly to his guns on his Taiwan-centric policy agenda. Chen has been quick to stake a claim on a new mandate - he can respectably claim to have captured a further 11 percent of the vote since 2000, and as he pointed out, even if you win by one vote you're still the winner - although the pan-blue opposition is unlikely to see it that way.

Political reality vs obsolete cartographyIn recent interviews Chen has reaffirmed his policy vision for the island, which he believes rests on "an internal consensus that insists on Taiwan being an independent, sovereign country". A central policy plank of Chen's second term will be the passing of a new constitution by 2006 and its enactment by 2008, to reflect more accurately the island's political reality. He has also outlined the strategy upon which he believes the DPP and its allies will achieve his ambitious vision: by winning an absolute majority in the December legislative elections and leveraging off referendums to pass constitutional amendments.

In a society that even one cabinet minister admitted last year was deeply divided, Chen's vision and tactics are not likely to reduce tension within Taiwan or across the Strait. Considering that pan-blue opposition alliance leader Lien Chan and Chen are hardly on talking terms and, after four years of gridlocked minority government, neither Chen nor the defeated Kuomintang (KMT) look set to be in the mood for bipartisan politics. (Lien is head of the KMT; his running mate in the election was People First Party (PFP) chairman James Soong.)

Constitutional revision is an emotive issue in Taiwan. Its present constitution is certainly an odd creature, dating back to 1947 when Chiang Kai-shek still ruled mainland China, and it contains various anachronistic references to this bygone era, such as sovereignty over Tibet and Mongolia. Taiwan's constitution, or rather the Republic of China's constitution, is not the only one in history to contain obsolete, anachronistic clauses, but few are so out of step with cartographic reality.

Unfortunately, updating cartographic unreality by deleting references to China so as to correspond with the political reality of Taiwan's de facto independence would ruffle more than a few feathers in Beijing. China views the creation of an entirely new constitution as the virtual creation of a new independent state, and it has condemned these moves with particular vigor. Its criticisms also contain an implicit threat of force should Taiwan enact such a constitution. Aside from the hardcore independence faithful of Chen's DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), this makes many people in both Washington and Taiwan nervous.

The current constitutional architecture requires a three-quarters legislative majority to pass a motion for constitutional change. Chen's pan-green DPP-TSU alliance is a minority in the legislature but is aiming for a majority in the next parliamentary elections in December. However, a mobilized pan-blue opposition (named after the color of the KMT emblem), galvanized by what it feels to be a stolen election, will put up a fierce fight, which is likely mean the current inter-party vitriol is likely to keep bubbling until at least December, with all the ensuing political deadlock that entails.

Moreover, given the massive 80 percent turnout for the presidential election and the near exact 50-50 split in the electorate, barring a major upset, it is debatable that any side could command the three-quarters electoral majority needed for a new constitution just nine months from now, although either side might be able to squeeze a small absolute majority. However, even securing a small absolute majority will depend on each side getting its core supporters out in force to vote in the December elections, and this might well mean that both sides have to play to their more extreme wings.

Given the probability of another vicious election battle and the unlikelihood of the pan-greens (named for the color of the DPP emblem) securing a 75 percent majority in the Legislative Yuan, or parliament, Chen is likely to pursue alternative means to secure his constitutional reform agenda. He has already made clear his preferred approach: a referendum.

Prior to last month's election, Chen had proposed halving the number of seats in the legislature from 225 to 113, but the measure was rejected by the Legislative Yuan. Chen has now mulled having the issue settled by a referendum as a back-door way of constitutional revision. Meanwhile the KMT has seized the referendum law to push for a "truth inquiry" into Chen's suspicious election-eve shooting, and Chen in response has called for a referendum over an inquiry into the KMT assets. These moves seem to smack of "direct democracy" running amok and being used to settle political scores and aggravate simmering political tension - hardly an auspicious start to the use of referendums in Taiwanese politics.

A further problem with the referendum path for a new constitution is that Chen will need his proposals to appeal beyond the core group of diehard independence supporters to the wider public. Despite a growing sense of Taiwanese national consciousness on the island, few voters want to provoke a war with the mainland by declaring de jure independence and would prefer to maintain the ambiguous status quo. In order to appeal to the broader public, Chen needs to water down his independence aims and argue the rationale for a new constitution on other grounds.

The constitutional messHere he is on more solid ground. The current constitution has undergone six bouts of amendments since the 1990s to reflect more accurately Taiwan's transition to multi-party democracy, but from a structural perspective the work is still something of a mess. Well-executed, a new constitution would consolidate democratic reforms and strengthen the political system.

Taiwan has neither a solid presidential nor parliamentary system of government. This would create headaches for any minority government, but in Taiwan's confrontational political landscape it has led to near legislative deadlock.

The island also needs to streamline its branches of government. Instead of the usual three branches - legislative, executive and judiciary - one finds in most democracies, Taiwan has a rambling five to seven branches, depending on how one classifies them.

Finally, the electoral system needs some fine-tuning. On a very basic level, elections are too frequent in Taiwan, there has been a major election nearly every year for the last decade, which can create voter apathy among the electorate and also constrain innovative policymaking among politicians.

However, all this begs the question that the opposition has posed: Why not merely amend the present mess to rectify these flaws rather than go for an all-out overhaul? And once again the issue boils down to the two very different visions of Taiwan's future and the island's identity that each side holds. On one side, the pan-greens' vision is of an indigenous Taiwanese identity and a separate Taiwanese state, and on the other, the pan-blues' vision is of at least accommodating the mainland.

Chen has promised that his new constitution would not deal with the thorny issue of sovereignty. Yet this is a disingenuous argument - it would be very difficult for a new constitution not to deal with the formal name of Taiwan, and there would be plenty of scope to codify concepts that would accelerate a trend toward creeping Taiwanese nationhood. In addition, any ratification of a new constitution by referendum would represent a sovereign act by the people of Taiwan, an effective declaration of independence from the mainland.

The highly politicized and acrimonious nature of the constitutional debate and the internal political backdrop against which it is taking place is unfortunate. Constitutional reforms or amendments are necessary for the island if it wants to consolidate its transition to a vibrant democracy fully and be capable of making good political choices in the long run. The most fundamental of these choices is in cross-Strait relations, and a weak, messy structure will render it hard to make effective choices. Increased paralysis and instability clearly aren't conducive to helping create the structure to make effective decisions,regardless of whether one is pro-unification or pro-independence.

In short, the quality of Taiwan's democratic architecture will affect cross-Strait relations whatever the island ends up with, but however it gets there looks set to be protracted and messy. Brace yourself for a tough year in Taiwanese politics.

Jamie Miyazaki is a freelance journalist and political risk analyst specializing in North Asia.